I forgot to give you a message,” I said to Laurie.
“What’s that?”
We were eating dinner—KFC instead of home cooked, one of those humongous buckets that come with different kinds of chicken, so everyone in the family can have their favorite—memo to the Colonel, that only works if everyone has different favorites. Me and Jake both reached for the Extra Crispy—and after a brief standoff, I let go and said, All yours. KFC was one of those foods that tastes good when you eat it but afterward makes you nauseous. Actually KFC generally made me nauseous even before eating it—because I associated it with the first night in that locked house, when I kept thinking Mom was going to come get me but I got smacked in the face instead.
Jake said, Sure you don’t want it, honey? and I said, I’d be happy to sign an affidavit, then added, Just kidding, because he forgot to smile. Then I told Laurie about the message I’d neglected to give her.
“This guy named Joe Pennebaker,” I said. “He called to say he was sorry and he wouldn’t be calling anymore.”
A look passed between them, the kind you probably wouldn’t notice if you weren’t making noticing your new hobby. Dad had stopped gnawing on his chicken bone. I should’ve mentioned, Ben was MIA again.
“Oh . . . ,” Laurie said. “When was that?”
“Like last week. Sorry. Forgot to tell you.”
“No problem.” Jake.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“What?” Laurie again.
“Joe Pennebaker. Who is he?”
“Why?”
“Just curious. I mean, what’s he so sorry about?”
Silence.
“I wouldn’t know, honey,” Jake said.
“You wouldn’t know what he’s sorry about? Or you wouldn’t know who he is?”
“He’s a policeman. That’s who he is.”
“You mean a policeman around here?”
“No. He’s retired.”
“So why was he calling you?”
Silence again. Mom shifted in her seat. Dad wiped the grease off his upper lip.
“He used to work on your case,” Laurie said.
“My case?”
“He was the cold case detective put on it.”
“Guess he didn’t do a very good job,” I said.
“Guess he didn’t,” Jake said.
“Did he have, like . . . a theory?”
“A theory?” Mom said, as if it were a word she wasn’t familiar with.
“Yeah. Like what he thought happened to me?”
“Like you said,” Jake said, “he didn’t do a very good job.”
Poker, I thought.
We juvenile delinquents used to play it after lights-out, for commissary food—Twinkies, Yodels, and Suzy Q’s. I was good at not showing any emotion—I’d had a bunch of practice—so I pretty much ended up with my own personal commissary.
This was a poker game where we all knew one another’s cards.
We were forbidden to put them on the table. House rules.
“I’m trying to remember,” I said. “Did me and Ben fight a lot when we were kids?”
Laurie scraped her fork on the plate. It sounded like fingernails across a blackboard.
“I don’t know,” Laurie said. “The usual, I guess.”
“The usual? Is that a lot?”
“Now and then.”
“Who started them?”
“What?”
“The fights? Who started them? Ben or me?”
Laurie shrugged. “Who remembers?”
You, I thought.
“How did we fight with each other? Like those Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots Ben had?” (Thanks, Facebook page.) “Did we fight like that? Actually start punching each other?”
“I don’t know, Jenny. Sometimes you fought. All brothers and sisters do.”
“I’m just wondering why Ben doesn’t seem to like me.” I actually knew why Ben didn’t like me—because he didn’t think I was me. But that was one of those cards I couldn’t put on the table. That I knew he’d gone and blabbed to them about me. I know that you know that I know . . . My head was starting to throb.
“I think Ben just feels . . . pushed aside,” Laurie said.
“That’s it? That’s all?”
“I’m sure he’ll come around.”
“I’m thinking maybe I did something to him. Back then, I mean. When we were kids.”
“Did something?”
“Like maybe I was this little terror. Maybe he remembers that.”
Silence again. Then: “You were a perfectly normal sister.”
Normal. A sweet, adorable, six-year-old little girl.
“Who always fought with her brother. How did Ben break his arm?”
What’s that expression—so quiet you could hear a pin drop? I could hear something else dropping. Almost. The pretense—as heavy as a beach towel you mistakenly leave out in the rain.
“He fell, honey,” Jake finally said.
“Just like that? All the way down the stairs?”
“I thought you didn’t know how he broke his arm.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“That’s right. Down the stairs. He didn’t look where he was going.”
Jake looked like he wanted to ask me where I was going. Wanted to tell me to stop going there.
“What happened after I . . . went missing?”
“What do you mean?” Laurie.
“To Ben. You said he flipped out or something? That’s the reason he’s still in high school, right? You sent him away somewhere.”
“Ben was traumatized,” Laurie said. “By your disappearance. He needed help.”
“Sure. That must’ve sucked for him. Not as much as it sucked for me. But I get it. Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where did he go? Where did you send Ben?”
“A school.”
“A school? Like what kind of school? A school for traumatized kids?”
“Sort of.”
“You mean like a mental hospital?”
“Like a school.”
“What was it called?”
Can we please drop this? Jake’s face was saying. Drop the Hesse and Kline–like interrogation. Drop the playing pretend. Drop the “you’re our daughter and we’re your parents.” Drop it. Stop it. End it.
“St. Luke’s Center,” Laurie said.
She looked down at her plate, but when she looked back up, she suddenly looked like Laurie again, complete with that toothpaste smile. Asked me if I might help her clean the dishes? Was I binge-watching anything on Netflix? Did I need a warmer winter jacket?
I felt a sudden chill breeze, but when I glanced at the dining room windows, they were shut tight.